Badass Bookworm / Western Animation

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• In Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers, "Doc" Hartford's Series 5 ability is useless in combat, and he's the most formally-educated of the four (Ph.D in Computer Psychiatry). Still, he's still able to ''keep up'' with the other three using a standard issue blaster, his fists, and his copious wit. Hand him a sword, and he's truly frightening.
• Adventure Time:
  • Princess Bubblegum. Aside from being a skilled scientist, she's also surprisingly skilled in hand to hand combat, being strong enough to tear Ricardio's limbs off with her bare hands.
  • Simon Petrikov aka the original identity of the Ice King, who manages to survive in the radioactive ruins for years while protecting little Marceline and fighting the crown's influence.
  • Simon's scientist girlfriend Betty, who takes Simon's curse, time-travel and the land of Ooo all in stride, proceeds to punch an anti-magic creature in the face to save his life, and then vows to save him using science.
• Archer, episode "The Rock": Stuck in the laundromat below the ISIS facilities, a couple of the nerdy "drones" employed by ISIS build a GPS-enabled communication device out of cell phones, a cash register, lasers, wires, a belt, paper clips, and the mica crystal of an engagement ring, with which they use to call a helicopter to save Archer and Lana in San Morino. Even Pam is impressed:
  Pam: Holy shit, you geeks are badass.
  • As if that wasn't enough, Krieger doesn't activate this makeshift communicator — one that could save Archer and Lana from certain death — until Malory Archer guarantees him and his coworkers a pay raise.
  • Cyril, of all people, gets to be one of these during "El Contador" He manages to bluff his way into a Colombian drug lord's compound using only his dossiers and Calzado's greed, then devises the plan to catch Calzado. Even Lana is impressed.
  Lana: You know, you actually don't suck at this.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Sokka, anyone? In a World… full of Elemental Powers and mystical nonsense, he manages to handle himself (sort of) through science, technology, and intuition. Bonus points for also being a Badass Normal as well.
• Huey Freeman from The Boondocks is probably the most intelligent character of the series, and is often seen reading or watching the news to heighten his awareness. He is also one of the best fighters of the series, and his kung fu skills are something to watch out for from this 10-year-old boy.
• The title character in the Pakistani show Burka Avenger — a schoolteacher who literally uses books and pens as weapons in the In-Universe martial art Takht Kabaddi to protect access to education and women's rights.
• Dr.S plitzy of Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys is the ship's engineer whose technical expertise is matched by his subtle but effective fighting skills. Then again, you do not want to mess with orangutans.
• Sypha Belnades and Adrian "Alucard" Tepes from Castlevania (2017):
  • With Sypha, she has a vast knowledge of Wallachia's history and ancient languages. In Season 2, after reading the many books of the Belmont Hold (along with Alucard), she is able to magically transport Dracula's castle to the trio's area.
  • With Alucard, both Alucard's parents where scholars and he raised as a scholar first and displays knowledge of science and magic. Nevertheless, he's incredibly badass due to his heritage.
• Similar to Sypha, Tera from Castlevania: Nocturne. It comes with being a speaker. Tera's a talented mage and able to read the hidden language of the spellbook to send the Abbot's forge machine back to hell.
• Danny's brainy older sister Jazz in Danny Phantom discovers she has amazing ghost fighting skills in "Maternal Instincts". She has since displayed said skills in a couple of other episodes. We're going to ignore "Secret Weapons".
• Dexter, from Dexter's Laboratory, is a tiny, stub-limbed boy genius who spends all his time in his secret laboratory, trying — in vain — to keep his pretty-princess Cloudcuckoolander sister out. Until a monster attacks the city, or aliens invade, or a meteor threatens Earth; then Dexter pulls out one of his giant, anime-inspired robots, super-powered exoskeleton suits, or space ships and kicks ass. He also seems to have learned kung-fu at some point.
• Gwizdo from Dragon Hunters. Yes, Gwizdo is very weak and skinny... if you compare him with his colleagues in the craft of killing dragons. He can't even swim and is afraid of heights. But not every person is able to survive after so many battles, shipwrecks,crowd attacks and unsuccessful scams, like this little man who uses only agility, ingenuity and the right choice of allies. Moreover, he personally defeated several villains while unarmed and even killed several dragons on his own. It is noteworthy that he gives hints to his powerful friend from books without leaving the battlefield... so Gwizdo has a mental hardening at the level of a war correspondent. Also he is a master of parkour and a very good climber.
• Gargoyles has several:
  • First is the obvious one, Lexington. Though the smallest of the clan, he maintains incredible strength (like bending metal spikes). What's more, ever since waking up to a technologically advanced society, he's engrossed himself in it. He built a motorcycle and flew a chopper.
  • David Xanatos. He's well-spoken, a keen businessman with several hundred million to his name, an avid chess-player, and indulged his geeky side by quoting the film version of Frankenstein (1931), admitting I Always Wanted to Say That. As for the badass portion of the equation? He's a black-belt who beats up gargoyles and other mythological creatures with Power Armor, which he invented.
  • When off duty, Goliath can typically be found in the library. It actually comes in handy in the episode "Eye of the Beholder," when he finds a book that provides a clue as to what sort of monstrous animal is wreaking havoc in the city.
• Gravity Falls
  • Dipper Pines may not be very athletic, but he's still got enough nerve and cunning to take on the supernatural weirdness he finds in his investigations.
  • The Author is the very definition of this trope. He wrote the series of Journals that told of many of the anomalies and dangers in Gravity Falls, many of which are very dangerous— including Bill Cipher. He invented a transdimensional portal, and when he was sucked into it, he survived for 30 years on the other side. He's very physically fit despite being in his 60s. He's also a certifiable genius, with 12 doctorate degrees.
    • It's no surprise these two get along very well when they finally meet in the second half of season 2.
• In Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures, scientist Benton Quest sometimes shows badass tendencies (though he's usually overshadowed by his more conventionally badass bodyguard, Race Bannon), particularly during his escape from the villain's headquarters in "General Winter" and his climactic fight with Big Bad Dr. Zin in "The Robot Spies." This was also true in the original Jonny Quest series, in which Dr. Quest is a "real dynamo when he gets going" according to Race Bannon himself.
  • Jessie and Hadji are no slouches either since they've saved each other and Jonny multiple times.
• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Kipo Oak has an extensive knowledge of several branches of science, with her favourite being astronomy. And while she isn't much of a fighter, she also has some combat skill thanks to years of rock-climbing and her shape-shifting abilities.
• The Legend of Korra:
  • Amon, the Big Bad of season 1, is a very agile fighter who is perfectly willing to fight benders along with his followers and is also an incredibly charismatic public speaker and utterly brilliant Chessmaster.
  • Asami Sato is (scientifically speaking) either the smartest or second smartest person in the world, and a good enough hand-to-hand fighter to take on Equalists and powerful benders alike.
  • A literal example can be found in Jinora, Tenzin's daughter and Aang and Katara's granddaughter. Especially in Season 1, she is almost always seen with a book in her hands. She is smart enough to lecture an all-knowing spirit animal how a radio actually works, and a powerful enough airbender to become the youngest master in history. Both things come together when she figures out a way to make a tornado with a group of airbenders.
• Tanya, the Gadgeteer Genius of Mighty Ducks: The Animated Series, may wear glasses and speak with a stutter, but she holds her own with pros in ice hockey as well as on the battlefield.
• Molly of Denali: Daniel is a Retired Badass example. He's a librarian who used to be in the Coast Guard.
• In Motorcity, Dutch turns out to be this in "Going Dutch" in which he's the only one able to fight off a Zombie Apocalypse and then again in "Vega" when he has to lead the Burners after Mike has been captured. While usually averted with Chuck, in "Fearless" he does manage to stand up to his fears and uses his brains to turn off the KMG after he has to "fly" to it.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Twilight Sparkle is a very dedicated bookworm to the extent that her mentor had to order her to take a break from her studies to make some friends. One thing led to another and she has to fight Nightmare Moon (a Physical God who is the embodiment of The Sacred Darkness) one-on-one to protect them—more than managing to hold her own. In later episodes she faces a full-grown dragon, a cockatrice, a bugbear, and a Hydra on her own. Despite not always successful, she never hesitates to try and also places fifth in a marathon, yet never having run in a race before, by studying books on long-distance running techniques beforehand.
  • Twilight had decided to dig into the books on offensive magic at some point along the way, as she can shoot lasers from her horn; Pinkie Pie even uses her as a machine-gun.
  • In the fourth season finale this gets up to 11 when Lord Tirek sucks all the magic out of Equestria, as she tries to flee from him so that he won't get her magic too. But when he blows up the library she'd lived in since arriving in Ponyville she wordlessly turns on a dime and engages him in a mountain-shattering battle worthy of Dragon Ball Z.
  • In the Season 7 finale, she proves her bookworm badassery to her precursor Star Swirl (whose unfinished spell about Cutie Mark magic she had finished in the Season 3 finale, for which she earned her Princess crown) by developing a spell that would banish The Pony of Shadows without sacrificing anypony else in the process.
• Hunter from The Owl House has an incredible well of knowledge about the magic of the Boiling Isles that he rattles off whenever he can. When Luz shows interest in wild magic, his favorite subject, he starts excitedly talking about his theories before remembering that wild magic is illegal and he and Luz are enemies. There is, however, a reason he's Belos's right hand man — Hunter is an extremely skilled fighter who utilizes Teleport Spam to disorient his opponents before striking at them with his staff, and is shown to have very little issue with parkouring up the sides of buildings.
• Ferb. At the end of an episode that revolved around Phineas training to beat Buford, Ferb knocked the bully out with one pinch. ("Well, he was all up in my face.") He also tends to get the "action"-type sequences in general, being "more of a man of action" than a talker, and he can build anything. And yet, if it weren't for Phineas he'd probably just be sitting under that tree, reading a book all summer...
• Blossom from The Powerpuff Girls. Professor Utonium himself became one in "Powerprof", when he builds a suit that gives him powers.
• Rick Sanchez from Rick and Morty takes this to extremes. Even as a pickle, he manages to take down an entire mafia from the inside.
• Kyle Broflovski from South Park. On the outside, a potty-mouth, short-tempered nine-year old boy who's also the smart one of the group, but the movie demonstrated that he can hack into top secret military databases. He has also been shown to be fairly athletic at points of the show and fully capable of kicking Cartman's ass when necessary. Out of all of the boys, Kyle is the one who is seen reading the most. In “You Have 0 Friends”, it's outright stated on his Facebook profile that reading is one of his hobbies.
• In Spiral Zone, Benjamin Davis Franklin of the Zone Riders is a geeky, scrawny science nerd who looks like "Weird Al" Yankovic. Nevertheless, he's tough enough to kick Big Bad Overlord in the face in one episode.
• Marco Diaz from Star vs. the Forces of Evil. Physically unimposing, fastidious A-student... who can karate-kick monsters three times his size and send them limping home.
• Steven Universe:
  • Pearl enjoys domestic things like baking and cleaning, willingly took up the entire chore wheel, and acts like a mother towards Steven. The episode "Last One Out of Beach City" blatantly labels her as "Repressed Nerd". Despite all this, she's also a highly trained samurai and assassin, gifted technician, and was known during the Gem War as the "Terrifying Renegade Pearl". This gets even more badass after the revelation in the episode "Back to the Barn". Peridot reveals that Pearls are created to be servants, and that their only purpose is "standing around, looking nice and holding your stuff for you". This means that all of the things mentioned above are not naturally in Pearl's skillset, which is the case with Amethyst, Jasper, Garnet (kind of), and Peridot. She learned all of that from scratch. She knows her strengths and weaknesses, and while she's physically not as strong as the other gems, she's very fast and incredibly agile and light-footed. She usually uses that to her advantage to outsmart her enemies. One of the few exceptions to this rule is in the same episode mentioned above. Peridot had been teasing Pearl for being a servant and not doing what she was designed to do for the entire episode. When Pearl finally gets enough, she gives Peridot a hell of a right hook.
  • When not nose-deep in A Wrinkle in Time or harrowing environmentalist non-fiction, Connie Maheswaran uses Rose's sabre to excellent effect, thriving under Pearl's tutelage.
• Bishop, from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003). You THINK that he's the resident Obstructive Bureaucrat, but when Mikey finally gets to take his revenge Bishop easily wipes the floor with him.
  • Also, Donatello.
• Samantha aka Sam of Totally Spies!. The first OP has her expertly using a chemistry kit as Clover and Alex watch her in amazement. While at the same time, she is able to fight off the random villains that the trio encounter just as effectively as her partners. AND she also manages to get and keep excellent grades at school.
  • As if that wasn't enough, the spinoff The Amazing Spiez! brings us Marc, who's essentially a younger male version of Sam. This is lampshaded in "Operation Killer Condos" when the Spiez use one of their gadgets to disguise as the original spies (and Jerry), and Marc-as-Sam points out that he gets to be the smart one.
• Transformers
  • Starscream was a Cybertronian scientist before his ascension to air commander of the Decepticon forces.
  • There's also Wheeljack, the cheerful crazy inventor, who can hold his own in battle quite well.
• Both Faragonda and Griffin from Winx Club qualify. They have proven to be very powerful sorcerers when they have to be. This is likely the reason they run their schools.
• W.I.T.C.H.: Taranee Cook is the most academically talented of the five girls and has power over fire. Her intelligence has allowed her to come up with very effective strategies in battle and even deduce some of the mystical phenomena the other guardians are confused by.
• Chase Young from Xiaolin Showdown. He's stated by Jack Spicer to be the "greatest Evil Genius", and by Omi to be "the greatest warrior who ever lived". Only Master Monk Guan has managed to beat him one-on-one, and Chase doesn't use Shen Gong Wu in combat.

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